1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of correcting errors in natural speech recognition applications, and in particular, to correcting natural speech recognition errors in languages in which words and phrases are represented by characters instead of groups of letters.
2. Description of Related Art
Many languages, such as Chinese and other Asian languages, are based on written characters to represent words or phrases, rather than groups of letters. It is very difficult and time consuming to manually enter the characters of such languages into a computer. Even knowing that each character represents a word or phrase in its entirety, it is often shocking to learn, for example, that there are over 7,000 Chinese characters. In order to use a standard keyboard with less than 100 keys, operators must go through a great deal of practice and training.
Speech recognition is an extremely fast method of entering Chinese characters. It is much faster than typing or using handwriting recognition.
Unfortunately, speech recognition in any language is not 100% accurate. Mistakes are made that must be corrected. Moreover, unless the mistakes are corrected according to the rules of the speech application, the speech application will not be self-correcting for future dictation. Correction is that much more difficult in character based languages. If a user is forced to correct speech recognition errors using a standard keyboard the effectiveness of speech recognition is reduced because the user still has to learn how to enter Chinese characters, or the characters of other languages, using a keyboard and/or mouse.
Presently, in Chinese and other Asian languages, it is difficult to correct speech recognition errors with a keyboard and mouse. This method describes a natural, user interface that will allow users to easily and naturally use speech recognition with a standard computer without purchasing an extra equipment or going through a great deal of training.
There is a long felt and unsatisfied need to enable efficient and convenient correction of characters with a standard keyboard and mouse, that is, by standard cursor controls.